


Four Vacation Songfics

by TheUltamate



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, In Flames, Magica, Peter Schilling, Songfic, mewithoutYou
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-03
Updated: 2012-07-03
Packaged: 2017-11-09 02:50:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/450438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheUltamate/pseuds/TheUltamate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or:<br/>Four short stories written while on vacation to the Wisconsin northwoods based on songs of varying background, such as European power metal, melodic death metal, a German one-hit wonder, and American indie folk rock in which Sollux has drowned in an act of kindness toward his matesprite and Aradia (aforementioned matesprit) is mournful, Dave faces internal conflicts regarding killing himself from an alternate future in order to ascend to the God Tiers, Dave faces continued conflict on the nature and ethics of space travel, and Orphaner Dualscar becomes exceptionally poetic when drunk and distraught in a public location.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. All Waters Have the Colour of Drowning

**Author's Note:**

> The song is [All Waters Have the Colour of Drowning](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBVQBo3rJhA) by Magica.

_please tell me, crimson river  
is there a place where I  
can search your troubled waters  
please don't lie_

She stood on the river's banks, staring forlornly downstream. Her hand was placed at her chest, her dress and red hair billowing in the wind.

She was waiting.

_it's been raining for three days  
and the waters are now high  
I can find no crossing  
I'm afraid I'll drown tonight_

-

She used to meet him there, as he'd come home in the evenings from being away at sea, spending months on the seas as one of the greatest helmsmen of Alternia. He'd float down on the river in a tiny skiff and bring it against the dock. He would take her hand and pull her close, fingers stroking her hair. On temperate nights, they would stay that way, standing on the dock, as happy as they could ever be.

One night, as she reached out her hand to help him from his boat, her ring slipped from her hand and fell into the river. It had been raining, andd the waters were quicker and deeper than usual. Yet he smiled at her and said, "I'll get it back for you."

_wicked river, you don't rest  
you just follow your own course  
while I weep upon your shore  
you show me no remorse_

-

So she stood by the river, waiting for him to come home, until one day, many years later. It had been raining, and the waters were again high. She attempted to cross.

_now I wish that every river would just stop its flow  
but I fear that these waters just won't let us go  
not now, not tomorrow, not until  
we're all down there below_


	2. Man Made God

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is [Man Made God](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObTDvMUMgr4) by In Flames

You're staring at yourself as you sleep. Rose would go apeshit for an opportunity to dissect what this could mean in regards to your terminally twisted psyche and how it's only because of the heroic efforts of your superego that you're not going down on your sleeping alternate timeline self.

 _Woah, holy shit. Let's back away slowly from this train of thought,_ you think. Dave Strider is _not_ into dudes, much less himself.

TZ's telling you what you can do to make yourself more powerful, give you total mastery of time, maybe even save your session, but you're not sure. Teal leetspeak floods your iShades. Normally, you'd find it endearing, but right now, you can't really stand to look at it. You consider just shutting off Pesterchum, but the only thing that will accomplish is pissing of TZ, which, right now, is the last thing you want to do.

Well, okay, right now? Second to last.

 _No,_ you think. _Striders are tougher shit than this._ You raise your sword over your dreaming alt-self. _Katanas aren't stabbing blades, dumpass, what the fuck am I doing?_ you think to yourself, maybe to distract you from the impending existentialist crisis of killing a second you. _So,_ you ask yourself, _is this considered suicide?_

 _Man, shut the fuck up,_ you tell yourself in return. _Stop being a total pussy about this. It's alt-you. He's doomed to die anyway. Might as well come out with something to show for it._

Your sword wavers in the air. The teal becomes more frantic in your glasses.

You turn away, covering the tears welling up behind your shades. You couldn't do it.

You couldn't make a god.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shuffle's a bitch for giving me an instrumental. Thankfully, the title gives enough to work with.
> 
> I just realized this is my first experience writing any of the kids outside of some practice drabbles I don't post, and the first time I wrote Dave at all. What a learning experience.


	3. Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is [Major Tom (Völlig losgelöst)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61Urq6hn4h8) by Peter Schilling.

_die Crew hat dann noch  
ein paar Fragen, doch  
der Countdown läuft..._

"Hey, control, how are things going over there?"

"We thing we're almost ready, Major. How're you holding up out there?"

Dave ran a hand over his face. "Jesus, would it have killed you to put fucking central air in this goddamn thing? Even a window unit, Christ. I'll be well done before the solar radiation even gets a goddamn _chance._ "

A chuckle from the other end. "Just hang in there, Major. We're basically sure here and ready to run the countdown."

"Hold the fuck up. _Basically_?" There was an uncomfortable second of silence before a reply.

"Well, we...we can't be totally sure, y'know? It's nerve-wracking, I know. We're doing the best we can." Another pause. "Countdown is go."

_dann hebt er ab und  
völlig losgelöst von der Erde  
schwebt das Raumschiff, völlig schwerelos_

Dave found he didn't have much time to worry about the sauna-like conditions inside his capsule once the boosters went off. He was mostly fearing for his life, pressed deep into his chair, making undignified moaning noises and 'good god's. Once in space, however, Dave was immediately taken aback by its...spaceiness.

No pressure bearing down on him, Dave allowed himself to relax and began interacting with the various instruments and switches. Now floating lazily in low Earth orbit and his momentum continuing his trek outward, Dave was supposed to activate his main thrusters and direct the capsule to rendezvous with the space station. Dave reached out, toward the switch.

For some reason, his finger faltered.

 _Why am I doing this?_ Dave suddenly found himself wondering. Looking out the pod's window, he stared at the distant stars. _Is there a point to this?_

"Major?" The guy from ground control's voice crackled over the radio. "What's going on up there? You're not having technical difficulties, are you?"

 _The uncertainty of it all,_ Dave thought. _How could anything make it okay?_

"Major? Dave! Dammit, Dave, do you copy? You're going to miss the station! What's going on? Why are you aborting the mission like this?"

 _We're all made of stars,_ Dave suddenly thought. Calmly, he picked up his radio and spoke: "Give my wife my love," he said.

"Dave? Da-" Dave cut the radio and stared out the window at the stars he was flying toward.

"This is my home," he said aloud. "I'm coming home..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I basically only picked the video I did because the 2001 footage is trippy as balls.
> 
> I Dave again. I was on a roll with Dave this vacation. How the fuck did Dave become a major and made the leader of an important space mission? I don't know, but calling him "Major Dave" was so goofy sounding I couldn't seriously write it.
> 
> I've always preferred the German version of this song to the English (Major Tom (Coming Home)). The last line just feels stronger in the German.
> 
> (The logical next step is to combine the 2001 with this fic and create 2413: A Space Odyssey, if only to have CAL 9000 say "Haa haaai'm sorry, Dave, but I'm afraid I can't let you do that, hoo hoo.")


	4. Messes of Men

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song is [Messes of Men](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qN_j1bz3i4s) by mewithoutYou.

The bar sat by the docks of a port city, and received a fair number of the harbor's scragglers, those who came and went, stopping briefly to haggle at the market and spin wild yarns of life on the Alternian seas at the nearest establishment that served bitter alcohol for dirt cheap. The Sea Angel's Wrath, an extremely bluntly named but sufficiently maritime-themed bar directly across from the center of the great harbor of Dinm Sÿkri, saw its own fair share of such nautical riffraff.

The seadweller sat on a stool, quiet and alone. He was dressed to impress, gold and purple and a great flowing cape. One didn't have to look for the distinctive horns of the Ampora caste or the two scars across the troll's face to recognize the great Orphaner Dualscar, currently moping into his ale. He was totally silent, save for some low, tuneless humming, which was putting everyone else in the bar in an uneasy mood. Bad things tended to happen when Dualscar wasn't in a good mood.

"Hey, Orphaner!" A female seadweller in thick furs of northern beasts broke away from her circle of drinking buddies and approached Dualscar. She was of the Hwaael caste, even higher than Ampora. "Tell us a tale, would you? Surely a great troll such as yourself must have some stories worth sharing?"

"Shit, forget it, Icespear," a Murpyg troll called from the other side of the bar. He was hanging with a group of blues and lowbloods and was likely a pirate. "Guy ain't fit to talk."

Much to everyone's surprise, Dualscar began to speak in a quiet, forlorn chant:

_I do not exist, we faithfully insist  
sailing in our separate ships and from each tiny caravel  
tiring of trying, there's a necessary dying  
like a horseshoe crab, in its proper season, sheds its shell  
such distance from our friends, like a scratch across the lens  
made everything look wrong from anywhere we stood  
our paper flew away before we left the bay  
so, half-blind, we wrote these songs on sheets of salty wood_

Icespear stared at Dualscar as he finished his ramble, having never even looked up from his drink. She wasn't sure how to react, and looked to her drinking circle for help. A Mekini and a Gerere beckoned her back, while a Thalas simply shrugged.

"Y'caught me makin' eyes hwit' d'other boatmen's hwiwes, an' 'eard me laughin' louder at d'jokes told by d'eir daughters. I'd set m'course fer land, bu' y'hwell understand, it takes a steady 'and t'nawigate adulterous hwa'ers." Dualscar looked up at something no one else could see. "D'propeller's spinnin' blades 'eld acquaintance hwit' d'hwawes, as d'ere's mistakes I'we made no rowin' could outrun. D'cloth low on d'mast, I say I'we got no past, but I'm nonetheless d'librarian's an' secretary's son."

Dualscar turned to look at Icespear. His eyes were deep and distant-seeming, not exactly looking _at_ Icespear but _though_ her. Icespear, for her credit, was taking the monologue rather well, though was confused bordering on disconcerted, trapped in Dualscar's intensely vacant gaze. "D'tarnish on m'brass, d'mildew on m'glass, I'd newer hwan' someone so _crass_ as t'hwan' someone like me. But a few leagues off d'shore, I bit a flashin' lure, and I assure you it hwas _not_ hwhat I expected it t'be!" His voice rose with his last line as he turned, now addressing the full bar instead of just the terrified Huntress. Every patron hung from his strange, slurred poetry, the bar dead silent.

"Floatin' forgetfully along," Dualscar spat, eyes moving over his audience, "hwit' no need t'be strong, hwe keep our confessions long and hwhen hwe pray, hwe keep dem short." He was practically yelling at this point, but dropped to a whisper: "I drank a thimble fulla fire; I'm not ewer comin' back." He let out a deep sigh, muttering: "Oh, m'god." He leaned forward, again speaking at a low volume: "I do not exist, hwe faithfully insist, hwhile hwatchin' sink d'eavy ships hwit' ewerything hwe knew. An' if ewer y'come near, I'll 'old up high a mirror; lord, I could newer show you anything as beautiful as you!"

Dualscar drained most of his ale in one swig, lurched off his stool, shoving Icespear aside, and stumbled out the door, humming loudly.

Icespear didn't move. "Uh," she said.

One of the Murpyg's companions, a burnt orange-blooded Ämätes, sighed and shook his head. "Poor guy," he muttered. "Nobody's heard yet?"

The bar remained silent. Icespear said "Uh" again.

"Dualscar proposed a matespritship with the Condesce." He took a drink. "She sunk him, then cut their personal dealings. The fool went and got his bloodpusher broken for nothing."

"Think he's gonna be okay?" the Mekini asked nobody in particular.

"No idea. It's just going to be a rough time on the seas as long as he's hung up about it." The Ämätes shrugged. "Something tells me not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I, uh, don't know how to feel about this one. Well for one thing it turned out to be _way_ to goddamn long, but that's because I had to use all of the song's lyrics, otherwise, none of it sounded good. I had fun writing Eridan's/Dualscar's accent, as usual, though, so at least there's that?
> 
> The song is a praise song, but I've always looked at it like a lost love song. Plus, all them nautical metaphors. It just screamed Dualscar.
> 
> Ignore the fantroll ancestors. I just needed some scenery and a way to prod the narrative along.
> 
> That does it for Four Vacation Songfics! Not my best work, but my only writing for a while, so I figured I probably should post it.

**Author's Note:**

> One look at the rest of my works will tell you I don't write sadstuck much. So, yeah, this turned out pretty garbage.
> 
> You can only barely tell it's supposed to be Sollux and Aradia in this one. The next ones are better. I swear.


End file.
